PLEASE: Establish NULL-ZONES around vendors and terminals to block statues, vehicles.

[Kubernetic]

Ran into a situation tonight on Fleet where a player was standing immediately to the left of the PVP medpac. What he would do is repeatedly place the Dr. Oggurobb statue DIRECTLY over the PVP vendor.

 

Zooming in the camera so that you can try to walk into the statue and see the vendor does not work because the sizes are so similar. that once you're inside, you still keep activating the statue, not the vendor.

 

I sat there and watched a few seconds, waiting for the statue to time out and disappear. Once it did, they REPLACED IT right back where it was, almost immediately!

 

So I ask, "Can you please get your statues off of the PVP vendor please?"

 

"No."

 

So I start clicking on players standing right near the vendor. I find a toon standing right there and can obviously see the Oggurubb icon under their thumbnail image bar, and so I address them directly, please get the statue off the vendor or I'm going to report it. Since I've now seen them replace the statue a SECOND time, I tell them I'll be filing a customer service report in 30 seconds and to get the statue off the vendor.

 

In response, a bunch of other players come over and within a minute or two, there are 12 hutts all over the place all around the terminals and vendors, trying to block everything.

 

By now I'm starting to get a few whispers from other players asking me to report them, as no one can get medpacs or PVP gear, or turn in missions. So I go ahead and file a ticket with the user's name and what they're doing.

 

The great news is, within about 3-4 minutes, I had a Live CSR pinging me for a chat session, and informed me that they were taking the issue seriously and would investigate, but of course couldn't report back to me for privacy, blah blah blah.

 

So here is the problem. We obviously have players who are such trolls and brain-dead that their only joy is in blocking other players from being able to function in the game.

______________________________________________________

 

It seems a no-brainer that when you call up a player character from the BioWare management consoles, you can see what that player has done, including whether or not they placed a statue, and the coordinates at which the statue was placed.

 

So why can't you establish some kind of null-zone around vendors and PVP/PVE terminals and turn-in terminals so that anyone trying to place a statue over them is blocked and receives a "Your item cannot be placed here. Please move away from the vendor or terminal and try again."

 

It seems rather foolish to have to keep reporting this over and over again.

 

Please do it programatically, and devise a way to specifically block these huge speeders, mail droids, statues, other large holos (or anything that can obscure the area or a vendor/terminal) and automatically prevent them from being deployed...

[space_mechanic]

Same goes for GTN and mailbox nearby.

[Kubernetic]

Same goes for GTN and mailbox nearby.

 

Indeed. Any required terminal or vendor that a player needs access to, including trainers, cargo terminals, and anything that can be covered and blocked should be given a zone of exclusion.

 

Anyone trying to spawn a statue or vehicle in that area should get a "You are too close to a vendor or terminal. Move away and try again" message as a response.

[Planar]

I do agree on a null/dismount zone, I do want to offer a tip, when such a troll exists, switches instances. Fleet is almost never a single instance and although it sucks I have to switch it does remedy the issue so far everytime.

[Kubernetic]

I do agree on a null/dismount zone, I do want to offer a tip, when such a troll exists, switches instances. Fleet is almost never a single instance and although it sucks I have to switch it does remedy the issue so far everytime.

 

While I understand the sentiment, and that if nothing had been done, that would have been at least a work-around solution (presuming there wasn't such another troll on Instance 2 doing the same thing), I don't really see that as the first course of action.

 

First off, they were intentionally impeding other peoples' game play. This is against the terms of service. It is not against the terms of service "only if there is only one instance, and no one can find a away to get away from you where you aren't continually trying to block them", it's a violation in every instance in which it's engaged.

 

I was polite enough, IMHO, and asked them to remove the statue, and since I knew who it was (by targeting them and seeing that they had the statue icon showing it was deployed--and thanks for that BioWare, good job on the bread crumbs so this could be done) I asked them directly by name, and gave them 30 seconds, which I think was more than fair. When they just laughed and said, "No", and I saw them respawn the statue yet AGAIN, I realized it was not a mistake, it was not an accident, and they had no interest in allowing other people to enjoy the game.

 

They were either drunk, or ticked off at life, or bored, or just stupid or whatever, and were just being a troll and interfering with people who just wanted to play the game.

 

My heat ticket was answered within moments, and when I got out of that next warzone, ALL of them and their statues were gone.

 

This did three things.

 

First, it made it so that the other people (from whom I was receiving whispers in solidarity for my request) could enjoy THEIR game as well. Second, it kept me from wasting my time shifting to another instance, where I might have found yet another troll doing the same thing. Third, if action was taken by the GM that I chatted with, then it has also given said player a "warning" of sorts, and may prevent them from ever engaging in this behavior again.

 

While I might have used your tactic if nothing else worked, I am much more confident that my method was the best, and most complete and long-lasting for all involved. Instead of allowing it to continue, and allowing others to be blocked and interfered with, I think I actually helped cut back on the problem, however slightly it may have been.

 

And it only took me a few seconds to file the report and chat with the GM. Problem solved, for now at least.

[space_mechanic]

Respect!

[MajikMyst]

They should just give everyone a blunder bust rifle.. When someone is somewhere they should be on their mount.. Like the mailbox, GTN, guild bank, or personal bank.. Someone can shoot them with this rifle.. It ends whatever it is they are doing, knocks them off their mounts, throws them back at least 10m, and stuns their character for 15 seconds.. With little stars and birdies circling their forehead..

 

Not to mention loses the ability to use their speeder for at least 5 minutes..

 

That will surely fix the problem..

[Kubernetic]

They should just give everyone a blunder bust rifle.. When someone is somewhere they should be on their mount.. Like the mailbox, GTN, guild bank, or personal bank.. Someone can shoot them with this rifle.. It ends whatever it is they are doing, knocks them off their mounts, throws them back at least 10m, and stuns their character for 15 seconds.. With little stars and birdies circling their forehead..

 

Not to mention loses the ability to use their speeder for at least 5 minutes..

 

That will surely fix the problem..

 

That's a great idea. Is that from another game or somewhere else?

[anonnn]

What they could do is increase the CD for the Oggurobb statue by 10 seconds. That would at least prevent a singular person from locking up a terminal or vendor constantly. And it's a simple risk-free solution that they could put into next update.

 

Other than that, there should definitely be a disallowed areas for the clickable-item-drops like the new class trainer holos. The same problem presumably exists with the older ones like the Satele Shan statue, but those are in much more limited availability. The problem is that's a terrifically huge effort, and just updating the home space stations like Carrick would be an incredibly large number of terminals and vendors to block off. Perhaps BioWare already has a way of computing the character's distance to the nearest terminal / vendor, and just not drop the Oggurobb statue if they're too close to anything clickable ...

[DmdShiva]

What they could do is increase the CD for the Oggurobb statue by 10 seconds. That would at least prevent a singular person from locking up a terminal or vendor constantly. And it's a simple risk-free solution that they could put into next update.

 

This seems like a particularly elegant solution. If you are using the holostatue for training, you're presumably going to put yourself in a position where you won't get attacked while you're training, so you won't need to pop the holostatue up again right away. And if you're in a safe place (for example, I used the holostatue in the middle of the Czerka facility on Tatooine while doing The Thing Czerka Found), then not having the statue for ten, or twenty or thirty seconds, after it vanishes isn't going to inconvenience you, while it does keep you from being a jerk by spamming it over and over again. Okay, well, reduce your being a jerk by spamming it; they'll still be able to slap it down over a contact/object you need to click on, but they won't be able to keep it in place without an accomplice doing it, too.

[Mowermanx]

What they could do is increase the CD for the Oggurobb statue by 10 seconds. That would at least prevent a singular person from locking up a terminal or vendor constantly. And it's a simple risk-free solution that they could put into next update.

 

Other than that, there should definitely be a disallowed areas for the clickable-item-drops like the new class trainer holos. The same problem presumably exists with the older ones like the Satele Shan statue, but those are in much more limited availability. The problem is that's a terrifically huge effort, and just updating the home space stations like Carrick would be an incredibly large number of terminals and vendors to block off. Perhaps BioWare already has a way of computing the character's distance to the nearest terminal / vendor, and just not drop the Oggurobb statue if they're too close to anything clickable ...

 

30 min cooldown would be fine. we lived fine before them, and the only people that may have a small inconvenience would be sub level 10's on the starter planet, which are so small its hardly worth the mention.

[anonnn]

30 min cooldown would be fine. we lived fine before them, and the only people that may have a small inconvenience would be sub level 10's on the starter planet, which are so small its hardly worth the mention.

 

Well you have the right idea, but I think a 30-minute CD would be highly annoying. Let me update my suggestion:

 

• reduce the Oggurobb permanence time to 30 seconds
  
• increase the CD to 3 minutes
  

 

This would have the effect that it would require a group of six or seven deviants in front of a terminal, all spamming their Oggurobb statue in sequence, in order to block access to it. It's highly unlikely that this many people would be willing to conspire so conspicuously and get themselves all reported to BioWare, and hopefully their account suspended. I think this solution would thwart any people who have thus far used their Oggurobb to troll on terminals.

[Bomyne]

This is something i have never understood... In WoW, TOR, whatever else... Vendors and important services need to have a null zone around them to protect from griefing, but they never do. Create an around about 1m around the vendor, quest npc, utility, etc where nothing can be (players, mounts, spawned objects, companions, etc), only stuff placed by the map designers. 1m is close enough we can still interact but far enough that it can't be blocked.

[Bomyne]

Well you have the right idea, but I think a 30-minute CD would be highly annoying. Let me update my suggestion:

 

• reduce the Oggurobb permanence time to 30 seconds
  
• increase the CD to 3 minutes
  

 

This would have the effect that it would require a group of six or seven deviants in front of a terminal, all spamming their Oggurobb statue in sequence, in order to block access to it. It's highly unlikely that this many people would be willing to conspire so conspicuously and get themselves all reported to BioWare, and hopefully their account suspended. I think this solution would thwart any people who have thus far used their Oggurobb to troll on terminals.

 

I don't think the statue is the problem. It's just the latest in a long line of annoyances in mmo history that block vendors and objects. If you fix it, the trolls will just find another way. They always do. I think the ops suggestion is the best idea.

[Coldin]

What I don't understand is why people have to be jerks about it, blocking vendors. A null zone would work, but I think simply increasing the cooldowns of the statues would be sufficient. Obviously there's no reason anyone would actually need to access the holo trainer or vendors more than once in a 5 minute span of time.